


Promise

by kungfuwaynewho



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 14:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kungfuwaynewho/pseuds/kungfuwaynewho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why does Jaime return to rescue Brienne from the bear pit?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promise

It had been their last night together in the wild, though of course neither knew it at the time. The day prior had been beautiful, the kind of day that made one feel that summer could never end. They made camp in the narrow valley between two tall hills, a brook burbling along at their feet, the grass fragrant with clover.

"My feet hurt," Lannister groused as he sat on a mossy log. Brienne paid him no mind; he often complained about this or that. She wondered if he even heard himself. With a sigh, Lannister pulled off his boots, which resembled nothing so much as scraps of leather. She wasn't quite sure how they were still on his feet. He did not walk to the brook - he hobbled. A contented sigh as he stepped into the cool water.

Brienne dug through her pack. They had enough stale bread, hard cheese, and smoked meat to make dinner tonight; they would have to forage tomorrow, give a day over to hunting, or find another abandoned holdfast or cottage to pillage. She could easily go a day or two without eating, but the Kingslayer had no such luxury. He had practically starved in his cage; whenever she grabbed his arm to move him along, she could feel how thin he truly was.

"You should try it," Lannister said, finding a flat stone to sit upon.

"Try what?" she asked absently, wondering if they could risk a fire. Though the days might make a person think winter was never coming, Stark words be damned, the nights were growing colder, and a fire would be a welcome treat.

"Your feet," he said, gesturing to his own. Brienne said nothing, only stared at him until he smirked and looked away. Lannister leaned back on his elbows, face turned up to the last of the sun's dying light, eyes closed, the very picture of insouciance. The rags and untamed beard ruined that picture, but only a little. For a moment, Brienne just looked at him. She realized that she never really _looked_ at him. His hair was lank, greasy, and tangled, and his face was scratched and dirty, yet there was no denying how handsome he still was. Not as handsome as her King Renly had been, of course, but handsome nonetheless.

Before the Kingslayer could open his eyes and catch her out, Brienne turned back to what meager food they had left. Her hands paused over the bread, meaning to tear it in two. Instead, she left it whole; then she sliced off a quarter of the sausage, stuffing it in her mouth. A moment later, she did the same with the cheese. Not much of a meal, but enough for tonight. She gathered the rest of the food and placed it in the Kingslayer's lap. Then she went upstream to fill her waterskin.

“And what will you eat?” he demanded. His tone was not kind in the slightest. Brienne did not deign to look back at him.

“I already ate,” she said. “While you were dozing in the sun like a pretty maid.” She took a long drink, then sat down beside the brook herself. She kept her boots on.

“At least take off your armor,” the Kingslayer went on, speaking while he chewed, crumbs dotting his beard. “My shoulders ache just looking at you.”

“Planning to escape?” Brienne asked archly.

“I've no desire for you to run me to ground, and I have no doubt you would. Though it would hurt considerably less when you finally apprehended me if you weren't wearing your armor, I'm sure.”

Brienne didn't answer. She took out her sword and whetstone, and she gave herself over to the comforting ritual of sharpening her blade.

“Who made your armor?” the Kingslayer asked. He was as bad as a small child with his incessant questions. When they had begun this journey, Brienne would have given anything just for a few hours' peace, but Lannister never seemed to shut his mouth. Questions, observations, ruminations; words, words, words. In the beginning, she had found it exhausting. Now she hardly noticed his chatter, and when he did fall quiet, she almost found she missed it.

“A smith on Tarth,” she answered, a tart reply, she knew. 

“It's beautiful work,” he said quietly, and now she did look at him, surprised. Compliments were not among his conversational arts. He looked at her now, a close examination that from others was always accompanied by scorn, but Lannister's eyes were neither mocking nor judgmental. He looked at her as though he had never seen her before. Just as she was prepared to open her mouth to say something – though she had no idea what just yet – Lannister turned abruptly away, staring into the brook. 

His next words were nearly lost in the water's babble, and by morning Brienne would convince herself she hadn't heard them truly at all. But at that moment, they filled her with a warmth she hadn't felt since Renly had granted her wish and placed her on his Kingsguard.

“It becomes you,” the Kingslayer murmured as the sun set.

* * *

They were to dine with Lord Bolton in less than an hour. Despite himself, Jaime felt a slight apprehension. Any other Northern lord, he knew he would be able to charm, if not inveigle, but Bolton was a different sort of man entirely. It didn't help that for a solid year of his childhood, after overhearing two squires in the yard telling stories to the pretty maids they were trying to seduce, Jaime had spent each night in a paralyzing terror that a flayed man would scale the castle, climb into his window, and steal him away to the Dreadfort.

He had been given clean clothes, for all that they were rags. Qyburn had also fashioned him a sling for his right arm; after the fallen maester had cleaned the wound, the pain had been almost more than Jaime could bear, but the sling helped considerably. Elevated as his wrist now was, the blood no longer pulsed down into the ruined flesh; there was still pain, of course, but it was reduced enough that he could now think somewhat clearly.

There were two guards in the corridor, staring at him with dead fish eyes, but they let Jaime wander down to Brienne's room. The door there was slightly ajar, and after a pause, Jaime rapped on it. No answer from within.

_They have taken her already. They came for her last night, while you slept. She hangs cold from a gibbet at this very moment._ Jaime blinked, surprised less by the thought that raced through his head than by the cold fear that lanced through his gut. He shoved the door open, the hinges squealing loudly, and marched inside. When he saw her, he was even more surprised by the relief that flooded through him.

She was sitting upon the edge of her narrow bed, facing away from him. Jaime didn't even see what she was wearing at first, noticing more the way her back was bent, her shoulders stooped, her head bowed. Absently he pushed the door closed behind him.

“You're very trusting,” he said. The words were meant as a rebuke. What was she doing, sitting there with her back to the door, unaware of who entered?

“I knew it was you,” she replied, voice so low he hardly heard her.

“How, pray tell? I don't suppose the women of Tarth are born with eyes in the backs of their heads.”

A long pause, so long Jaime thought she would not answer him. “No one else would have knocked,” she finally said. She still had not looked at him.

Jaime approached her. In the dim light of the room, he thought at first that she was wearing an oddly-colored brown shirt. He realized that not only was the garment pink, it was, in fact, a dress. Early on in their journey he had tried to imagine her wearing a dress once, and had laughed himself to sleep. Considering that this was plainly a garment Bolton's men had found somewhere ( _where?_ ), he was surprised to see that it fit her reasonably well. It was clearly tight around the shoulders, and as he drew near he saw that the hem was well-short of her ankles, but still. A dress, a pink dress. A very out-of-fashion dress, with fur trim and a lace bodice; Jaime caught a glimpse of her breasts through the laces, and though he had seen her completely nude not two days ago in the baths, for some reason this sight was far more...provocative. He averted his gaze quickly.

He wanted to ask her a hundred questions - _Who brought you this dress? Did they force you to put it on? Do you realize that you're wearing Bolton's color?_ \- but instead Jaime only gingerly sat beside her, wincing at the stiffness of his back, the aches throughout his body.

“They mean to humiliate me,” she said. From her posture and the quiet volume of her voice, he had taken her for beaten, cowed. Now he realized that he had mistaken her. She was coldly furious.

“So don't let them,” Jaime said. How many people over the last seventeen years had tried to humiliate _him_? Anger him, mock him, abuse him, and gods knew what else. And he had only ever smiled, and quipped, and laughed, and never let any of them see how their words wounded him. None of them had ever known. None until her, until Brienne.

Her back straightened, her chin lifted. Now she looked at him. Jaime didn't see her ridiculous height, her broad face, her cropped hair. He only saw her eyes, the clear blue of a summer's day. _Sapphires_ , he thought, and he smiled.

* * *

After dinner, one of Bolton's men met them outside the dining hall, to escort Jaime up to his room, as had been the custom the few days they'd been at Harrenhal. Different guards came for Brienne – Locke's men. Jaime had foolishly allowed himself to hope that Brienne would be treated well, even if she remained Bolton's prisoner, but if the Lord of the Dreadfort was giving her back to Locke and his men.... They all left together, but Jaime watched as they took her not up the winding stair to the rooms they had been given upon their arrival at the castle, but instead to a storeroom. She never looked back at him, but there wasn't an ounce of fear in her bearing; for a brief instant, she looked as much a lady as he had ever seen. Proud, glorious, never to be broken.

Jaime spent a restless night tossing and turning, his right wrist a dull, burning ache. His missing fingers itched. By the time dawn arrived, sullen and shrouded by low clouds, worry suffused him head to toe. He could not help but think of all the things they might do to her. Had she already been raped this night? Or was that a horror yet to come? 

They spent the day preparing for the journey to King's Landing. Bolton's man leading the party, Walton, never let Jaime stray more than a few feet from his sight. “You're not a free man,” he kept insisting. “I'm to take you to King's Landing, but you're not a free man. Not yet.” Jaime could only nod. It wasn't until the end of the day, as Walton walked him to the baths, that Jaime worked up the nerve to finally ask the question that had plagued him since dinner the night before. “And what will become of the woman?” Walton claimed he didn't know, that it was none of his concern. But his eyes shifted away from Jaime's, and the fingers on his sword hand twitched. Jaime pressed him again.

“She's to stay here. What they'll do with her, I've no idea, and that's no lie.” At least Walton had the decency to look down soberly as he answered.

“Take me to the rookery,” Jaime ordered, and though Walton wasn't happy being given orders, he acquiesced nonetheless. Jaime dictated a brief letter to Brienne's father, telling him only that she had been taken prisoner and was being held for ransom. He wondered if Lord Tarth had even known his daughter had taken up arms in the war. She could have played the knight but safely, well away from any battle, never letting her pretty armor be scratched. But instead, she had marched without hesitation straight into the fire, dragging a man she loathed behind her, attempting to do the impossible. Jaime wondered if Lord Tarth had any idea just how brave his daughter was.

After his bath, Jaime dressed, slowly and clumsily, and he went to her.

Had he ever truly thought her ugly? She was no beauty, for certain, yet she wore dignity like a great cloak, her strength something almost tangible hanging in the air. Jaime resolved himself; he would make for King's Landing with all haste and turn about immediately, leading a company two hundred strong. He would storm the gates of Harrenhal, he would put all her captors to the sword, and he would take her back.

“I thought you were gone,” she said. Her voice sounded dead.

“Tomorrow.”

“Have they told you what they plan to do with me?” From the way she said it, Jaime knew that she had been told as well. Most likely in far greater detail than what Walton had given him.

“Lord Bolton's traveling tomorrow as well,” he said. “He's going to the Twins, for Edmure Tully's wedding. You're to remain here.”

“With Locke.”

And it occurred to him that if his party left after Bolton's, then Bolton would not know if Brienne remained at Harrenhal or not. Could he delay Walton enough in the morning? Could he convince the man to take Brienne with them south? His breath caught in his throat. “I owe you a debt,” he said. In truth, he owed her more debts than he could count. He felt on the cusp of something, standing at the edge of a precipice, everything he knew behind him, and some terrifying, beautiful new world ahead of him. Could he enter that world without her at his side?

He expected her to ask him to do whatever he could to take her with him, which only proved that he still didn't know her at all. “When Catelyn Stark released you, we both made a promise to her. Now it's your promise. You gave your word. Keep it, and consider the debt paid.”

It would not be until late the next night, watching Qyburn bandage her wounds, keeping his left hand at the small of her back, that Jaime would realize it was at this moment that he began to love her.

“I will return the Stark girls to their mother. I swear it.” Even as he said it, even after all they had been through, he waited for her to throw this oath back in his face. He was the Kingslayer, after all – he had taken the most important oath in all the realm and broken it in the worst possible way. But she only nodded once, her face softening.

“Goodbye, Ser Jaime,” she said.

It took a moment for the import of her words to fully strike him. At first, he thought only of her farewell, of the terrible finality he heard in her voice. She didn't expect to ever see him again. He realized that despite his letter to Tarth and his decision to return as soon as he could, this might be the last time he stood before Brienne. He thought to say something, and only then heard her words again. She had called him by his true name. 

Tears filled his eyes, and he could think of nothing to say. Jaime turned, an ache in his chest worse than the pain from his severed hand, and he went to the door. He paused there, a tumult in his heart and head, feeling as helpless as he had the day Cersei had told him she was to be married to Robert and taken away from him, taken to King's Landing.

Jaime turned back. He crossed the room in four long strides. He saw only mild confusion in Brienne's eyes before he put his hand to the back of her head and crushed his mouth upon hers. It was not a pleasant kiss, nor was it romantic. No bards would sing songs of a kiss such as this. Jaime was aware of her hands on his chest, but she was not pushing him away. He pulled back enough to look at her, to see her eyes, and then he kissed her again, gently, softly. One of her hands slid down to his waist, the other tentatively brushed against his jaw. Jaime wondered if she had ever been kissed before.

He ended the kiss reluctantly, keeping his forehead pressed against hers. Her soft breath puffed against his cheek. “I will come back for you,” he swore. Let all the gods hear him. Brienne shook her head, tried to say something, but he hushed her with another quick, fervent kiss.

And then he left her, leaving abruptly, afraid that if he didn't leave that very second he would not be able to. Walton would have to send in his men to drag him away.

* * *

They had raced away from Harrenhal, pushing their mounts. For all that Locke had let them go, Brienne was convinced he would pursue. Few lords were forgiving if their orders were not obeyed, but Bolton seemed even less forgiving than most, and would, no doubt, be quite wroth upon hearing of her escape. But Locke did not pursue, and they finally slowed their pace. It was well-past dark when they stopped to make camp, however, and by then the deep scratches the bear had left in her arm and neck burned so badly Brienne feared she would scream.

Walton's men scouted, found wood, built fires, while Jaime and the former maester took Brienne to a secluded copse of trees. She stripped out of the wretched pink dress, standing before the men in equally torn and dirty smallclothes. Jaime had already seen her fully bared, of course, and Qyburn only had eyes for her wounds. He washed and dressed the places the bear had clawed her flesh, letting her sit on a log as he attended to her neck. Jaime sat beside her, his hand pressed firmly against her back, and his eyes never left her face.

Brienne had been unable to say anything to Jaime since they had left Harrenhal. She didn't know what to say. She had spent a long day and night alone in the storeroom after he left, remembering his kiss, knowing it to be her last—and if she were truthful, her only—glimpse of pleasure before what would inevitably be a painful death. Pacing between barrels and sacks, hearing the heavy footfalls of her guards outside, their quiet snickers, Brienne had done her best to keep her mind clear. She didn't want to imagine what might happen to her; yet she couldn't keep the thoughts away. One horror after another paraded through her mind, playing out with grotesque clarity, mocking her.

She could never have guessed at the bear pit, however. The beast was riled when they pushed her in. Brienne didn't know which was worse—the bear's roar, or the swelling laughter from the men as they tossed in a wooden sword.

It was not long, though, before Brienne heard nothing at all. She never knew the men sang, and she never heard Jaime's argument with Locke. Her world shrank to the pit, the sand shifting treacherously under her feet, the bear swiping out with his claws, the sweaty grip she held on the sword. Death flapped black wings in the corners of her eyes, but Brienne would not look.

At first, when a man landed in the pit behind her, she had thought that Locke had thrown in another prisoner. She turned to see who she would need to defend, and the sight of Jaime, struggling to his feet, his poor, maimed arm held to his chest, was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Her relief quickly soured as Jaime forced his way between her and the bear—he was even more helpless than she, and the men still watched—even as the bear swiped his claws in the dirt, the men still watched.

_She_ would not watch as he was mauled to death in front of her. Brienne prepared to step forward, pull Jaime back, stand atop him if she must, but then a bolt flew from above and buried itself in the bear's shoulder. After that, everything happened with feverish speed, and it seemed only seconds later that she was pulling Jaime out of the pit, as he had just helped her climb from it himself.

There were fires ahead, and the smell of cooking meat. Jaime's hand slid up and down her back, and though the woods were quiet and Qyburn was making his way back to camp, Jaime still inclined his head close to hers to murmur in her ear. “Are you all right?”

It was likely that he only asked after her injuries, but she was tempted to answer for much more. Even if she were to be slain the very next day, she would be more than all right. Right now, she felt perfect. But Brienne could only nod, setting her jaw and staring forward at the fires; she would not weep in front of him, no matter what else they had been through together. Jaime kissed her temple, then under her ear, and somehow the way his nose brushed against her skin between the kisses was more exciting than the kisses themselves. Something twisted in her gut, as it had when he had climbed into the bath with her, when he had sat with her after she had been stuffed into that ridiculous dress, when his hand had covered hers at supper, but most of all, when he had kissed her.

He rested his head on her shoulder, his hand sliding around to clasp her around her waist. They might have sat like that forever, but a cool breeze blew through and Brienne shivered. Jaime kissed her lightly on the shoulder—would he kiss her like this, so casually, so easily, from now on?--and squeezed her close. “Stay here,” he said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to sink into her bones, “I'll bring you back some clothes.”

He made it only a few paces away when she asked, “Why did you come back?” It had been clear that his rescue attempt had been in no way a sure thing. He could have easily died beside her in that pit. Jaime turned, and looked at her, and for a moment she thought he would return to kiss her, as he had done in the storeroom at Harrenhal. But he only smiled, a slow, languorous smile such as she had not seen from him since before he'd lost his hand. “I made a promise, my lady,” he said.


End file.
